High Schoolhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/high-school
en-usTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:54:02 -0500Tue, 03 Mar 2015 13:54:02 -0500The latest news on High School from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-ap-us-history-became-controversial-2015-2Here's how AP US History became one of the most controversial classes in Americahttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-ap-us-history-became-controversial-2015-2
Fri, 20 Feb 2015 12:07:59 -0500Peter Jacobs
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54e768a5ecad042f59e01aaf-600-/dan-fisher-oklahoma-representative.jpg" border="0" alt="Dan Fisher Oklahoma Representative" width="600"></p><p>One of the most popular high school courses in America is also one of the most controversial — Advanced Placement US History, known as APUSH.</p>
<p>Across the country, conservative state lawmakers are fighting back against a newly revised course curriculum for APUSH they say is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-oklahoma-lawmakers-aim-to-halt-advanced-placement-history-course-2015-2">infused with a liberal bias</a>.</p>
<p><span>Critics of the new guidelines say they aren't patriotic enough and emphasize negative events like slavery and mistreatment of Native Americans.</span></p>
<p>Advanced Placement, or AP, tests are taken by high school students for potential college credit in a specific subject.</p>
<p>The College Board, which also administers the SAT, <a href="http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-course-exam-descriptions/ap-us-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf">debuted the new framework</a>&nbsp;for APUSH&nbsp;in fall 2014.</p>
<p><span>The revised APUSH curriculum emphasizes "historical thinking skills" such as "chronological reasoning or a rigorous use of evidence," rather than date memorization, a</span>s College Board Director of AP Curriculum <a href="http://www.nche.net/pages/history-matters/june-2014---charap">Lawrence Charap wrote in a column last June</a>.</p>
<p>"In order to foster these skills, the redesigned courses define the content conceptually and give teachers the same freedom to explore topics in depth that college professors enjoy," Charap writes.</p>
<p>This week, the opposition to the new framework began to heat up again after an Oklahoma House of Representatives education committee <a href="http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2015-16%20COMMITTEE%20AMENDMENTS/House/HB1380%20FULLPCS1%20DAN%20FISHER-KB.PDF">passed a bill that would cut funding for APUSH classes in the state</a>.</p>
<p>"We don't want our tax dollars going to a test that undermines our history," <span>Republican&nbsp;</span>Dan Fisher, who authored the bill, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-oklahoma-lawmakers-aim-to-halt-advanced-placement-history-course-2015-2">said during committee debate</a>, according to Reuters.</p>
<p>Additionally, in Georgia, the state House and Senate held a joint meeting to question Trevor Packer, the College Board senior vice president responsible for overseeing the AP.</p>
<p>The vice chairman of Georgia's House Education Committee said the new APUSH curriculum "seems imbued with leftist, identity-group politics,"&nbsp;<span>as&nbsp;</span><a href="http://onlineathens.com/breaking-news/2015-02-19/state-lawmakers-grill-college-board-executive">the local Morris News Service reports</a>.<span>&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>These objections aren't new. In <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/whats-driving-conservatives-mad-about-new-history-course-264592">an article on the changes last summer</a>, Newsweek quoted former APUSH teacher Larry Krieger, who has been leading the fight against College Board's changes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"As I read through the document, I saw a consistently negative view of American history that highlights oppressors and exploiters," Krieger said on a conference call sponsored by two conservative groups fighting the new APUSH framework. He read quotes from the framework to illustrate his point: "Instead of striving to build a city on a hill, according to the Framework our nation's Founders are portrayed as bigots who 'developed a belief in white superiority' — that's a quote — that was in turn derived from 'a strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority' and that of course led to 'the creation of a rigid racial hierarchy.'"</p>
<p>Adding to the battle, the Republican National Committee <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/RNC.JPG">passed a resolution over the summer that described the revised curriculum</a> as "a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation's history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects." The RNC said the College Board's framework failed to discuss in-depth the Founding Fathers or the Declaration of Independence, and that it omits figures such as Albert Einstein and Rosa Parks.</p>
<p>Packer, the College Board SVP, defended these changes to the Georgia legislature,<a href="http://onlineathens.com/breaking-news/2015-02-19/state-lawmakers-grill-college-board-executive"> the Morris News Service reports</a>.</p>
<p>"What we've done with the new framework is attempted to establish a national consensus around what is required for college credit," Packer said. "We've deliberately not set names (of historical figures) into the framework, by and large, because we want teachers to use their states' standards to fill in the names."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wesleyan-dke-fraternity-suing-for-discrimination-2015-2" >Wesleyan frat sues for discrimination after being forced to accept women</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-ap-us-history-became-controversial-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/law-school-worth-money-job-rank-2015-1">Why Law School Is A Waste Of Money Unless You Get Into A Top School</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/r-oklahoma-lawmakers-aim-to-halt-advanced-placement-history-course-2015-2Oklahoma is trying to ban AP US Historyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/r-oklahoma-lawmakers-aim-to-halt-advanced-placement-history-course-2015-2
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 15:22:00 -0500Heide Brandes and Jon Herskovitz
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54e4f444eab8ea902f119598-600-/washington-crossing-the-delaware-painting.jpg" border="0" alt="Washington Crossing The Delaware Painting" width="600">OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Oklahoma lawmakers are trying to block funding for Advanced Placement U.S. history courses, saying the curriculum is not patriotic enough, as they aim to join others in halting a program designed to prepare top students for college.</span></p>
<p>A new framework for the course introduced in 2012 has sparked controversy. Cultural conservatives blast the changes they see as questioning American exceptionalism, while supporters say the course offers students a balanced way to analyze how American history has unfolded.</p>
<p>This week, a bill to cut funding for Advanced Placement U.S. History courses in the state passed an Oklahoma House committee along party lines, with 11 Republican voting for the measure and 4 Democrats opposed.</p>
<p>"We don't want our tax dollars going to a test that undermines our history," Dan Fisher, a Republican lawmaker who authored the bill, said during committee debate.</p>
<p>Nearly 4,000 colleges and universities allow those who meet a certain score on AP tests to be given college credit. The tests, which cover a wide array of subjects, are also seen as advancing academic achievement and can help those who qualify for AP courses to be looked on favorably by college admissions boards.</p>
<p>Opponents say the revised guidelines for the history course cast the United States in a harsh light by giving undue emphasis to topics such as slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, while distorting events such as the U.S. involvement in World War Two.</p>
<p>Last year, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution calling on the College Board, which administers the test, to revise the curriculum. The party said it sees the framework as a "radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation's history."</p>
<p>In September, the Texas State Board of Education, which is dominated by Republicans, requested the College Board to rewrite the AP U.S. history curriculum.</p>
<p>In Colorado, hundreds of students walked out of class to protest a move by conservative school board members proposed changing the U.S. history course.</p>
<p>Officials for the College Board said the framework, which has yet to be implemented, has the overwhelming support of AP U.S. History teachers and college-level U.S. history professors.</p>
<p>"This debate, and the resolution itself, has been marred by misinformation.&nbsp;The redesigned AP U.S. History course framework includes many inspiring examples of American exceptionalism," said Trevor Packer, a senior vice president for Advanced Placement and instruction.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-oklahoma-lawmakers-aim-to-halt-advanced-placement-history-course-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-america-2015-2The 25 most elite boarding schools in Americahttp://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-america-2015-2
Mon, 09 Feb 2015 11:36:00 -0500Emmie Martin and Skye Gould
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">From regal campuses to touted alumni, many boarding schools exude prestige.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We recently published a list of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-the-us-2014-12">most elite boarding schools in the US</a>. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To come up with this list, we examined each school’s endowment, acceptance rate, and average SAT score.&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We used data from </span><a href="http://BoardingSchoolReview.com"><span class="s2">BoardingSchoolReview.com</span></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. Data that was unavailable on </span><a href="http://BoardingSchoolReview.com"><span class="s2">BoardingSchoolReview.com</span></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> was taken from the schools’ websites or from <a href="https://niche.com/">Niche</a>.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">You can see the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-the-us-2014-12">full list of schools here</a>, and check out the top 25 below:&nbsp;</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54d8dc4e6da811dd0f0c4645-1200-1734/bi_graphics_topboardingschools (1).png" alt="BI_graphics_TopBoardingSchools (1)" border="0"></span></p>
<p><a href="//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/"></a></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2015-1" >What it's like to attend the most elite boarding school in America</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-america-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/law-school-worth-money-job-rank-2015-1">Why Law School Is A Waste Of Money Unless You Get Into A Top School</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12Bill Gates Is Drastically Changing How History Is Taughthttp://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12
Thu, 15 Jan 2015 10:39:56 -0500Melia Robinson
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12">Click here to read the story »</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2015-1What It's Like To Attend The Most Elite Boarding School In Americahttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2015-1
Tue, 13 Jan 2015 10:49:19 -0500Melia Robinson
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/545a91176bb3f700078b456d-1200-/img_8040-4.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, becky moore, class, harnkess table" width="1200"></p><p></p>
<p>In our recent ranking of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-the-us-2014-12">Most Elite Boarding Schools in America,</a> we considered the school's endowment, acceptance rate, and average standardized testing scores.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.exeter.edu/">Phillips Exeter Academy</a>, a 1,200-student-strong high school located in the sleepy town of Exeter, New Hampshire, rocketed to the top of the list.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br></span></p>
<p><span>When Dr. John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard and resident of Exeter, opened the Academy in 1781, he set out to teach young men "the great and real business of living."&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">More than two centuries later, the now co-ed school prides itself on the strength of its network, its commitment to spreading kindness, and on its use of the Harkness Method, a unique teaching model that schools around the world strive to imitate.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many millionaires and a handful of billionaires are products of the Exeter community and have helped grow the school's endowment to $1.2 billion. The fund supports many students' tuition, which otherwise costs </span><a href="http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/109_1370.aspx">$46,905</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a year for boarding students.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Last fall, I spent the day as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy to see why it's the best.</span></p><h3>Phillips Exeter Academy, recently named the most elite boarding school in America, has a reputation as a "feeder school" — a school that sends a high number of students to Ivy League universities. As I drove to the quiet town of Exeter, New Hampshire, I expected to hate it.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/545a9114ecad0470198b4568-400-300/phillips-exeter-academy-recently-named-the-most-elite-boarding-school-in-america-has-a-reputation-as-a-feeder-school--a-school-that-sends-a-high-number-of-students-to-ivy-league-universities-as-i-drove-to-the-quiet-town-of-exeter-new-hampshire-i-expected-to-hate-it.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>Before arriving on campus, I imagined the quintessential boarding school stereotype — Vineyard Vines-wearing, silver spoon-fed teenagers crumbling under academic pressure, bragging about their college acceptances, and sneaking off into the woods to get high.</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/545a9116ecad04c6178b4568-400-300/before-arriving-on-campus-i-imagined-the-quintessential-boarding-school-stereotype--vineyard-vines-wearing-silver-spoon-fed-teenagers-crumbling-under-academic-pressure-bragging-about-their-college-acceptances-and-sneaking-off-into-the-woods-to-get-high.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>But I spent the day as a student in "the bubble," as students call the Exeter community, and it was nothing like I expected. I never wanted to leave. </h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/545a911669beddee4d8b4570-400-300/but-i-spent-the-day-as-a-student-in-the-bubble-as-students-call-the-exeter-community-and-it-was-nothing-like-i-expected-i-never-wanted-to-leave.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2015-1#fewer-than-20-of-applicants-are-admitted-to-exeter-every-year-to-apply-students-submit-testing-scores-essays-and-their-middle-school-principals-recommendation-these-flags-represent-where-current-students-come-from-and-the-pins-show-the-hometowns-of-applicants-for-the-class-of-2019-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-the-us-2014-12The 50 Most Elite Boarding Schools In The UShttp://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-the-us-2014-12
Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:53:00 -0500Emmie Martin and Lauren Browning
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54a6c0576da811f4228b456b-600-/phillips-exeter-academy-4.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy" width="600"></p><p>Going to a top boarding school can do more than help students get into a good college — it can provide them with a powerful alumni network, a solid education, and lifelong friends.</p>
<p>We examined the most prestigious boarding schools in the country to find the best of the best.</p>
<p>To do so, we factored in each school's endowment, acceptance rate, and <span>average SAT scores,</span>&nbsp;as reported by <a href="http://boardingschoolreview.com">BoardingSchoolReview.com</a>. We weighed each of those criteria equally to rank the schools.</p>
<p>Data that was unavailable on BoardingSchoolReview.com was taken from the schools' websites or from <a href="http://niche.com">Niche</a>.</p>
<p><em>Editor's Note: The first version of this post incorrectly stated the SAT score for Governor's Academy as 2150 and the endowment for Dana Hall School as $33 million. We have since corrected these errors and re-ranked the list accordingly.</em></p><h3>50. Holderness School – Plymouth, New Hampshire</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54a305326da81110638b4568-400-300/50-holderness-school--plymouth-new-hampshire.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Average SAT score:&nbsp;</strong>1800</p>
<p><strong>Endowment:&nbsp;</strong>$60 million</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.holderness.org/podium/default.aspx?t=148258">Holderness School</a> has a two-week period in March where students participate with their graduate class in experiential special programs that range&nbsp;from outdoor exploration to community service. Holderness accepts 45% of applicants and has class sizes averaging around 12 students.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>49. Lake Forest Academy – Lake Forest, Illinois</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54a306386bb3f79f13f64603-400-300/49-lake-forest-academy--lake-forest-illinois.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Average SAT score:&nbsp;</strong>1820</p>
<p><strong>Endowment:&nbsp;</strong>$25 million</p>
<p>Since 2002,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.lfanet.org/about/mission_history">Lake Forest Academy</a> has held an annual&nbsp;<span>Head of School Symposium where students and faculty engage in conversations, presentations, and trips about diversity and global pluralism &mdash; a topic highly valued by the school. Linked with Lake Forest College, the boarding school accepts 36% of applicants.</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>48. St. Anne's-Belfield School – Charlottesville, Virginia</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54a306d0ecad04eb0bce446a-400-300/48-st-annes-belfield-school--charlottesville-virginia.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Average SAT score:&nbsp;</strong>1827</p>
<p><strong>Endowment:&nbsp;</strong>$25 million</p>
<p>Originally founded as a school for the daughters of University of Virginia graduates,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.stab.org/page.cfm?p=1">St. Anne's-Belfield School</a> accepts 35% of applicants. The now-coed school keeps classes small, averaging 13.7 students, and offers 15 AP courses.</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-elite-boarding-schools-in-the-us-2014-12#47-stevenson-school--pebble-beach-california-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/phillips-exeter-harkness-table-2014-11Why The Classes At Phillips Exeter Are Different Than At Any Other Private Schoolhttp://www.businessinsider.com/phillips-exeter-harkness-table-2014-11
Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:57:00 -0500Melia Robinson
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/545a911569bedd3d578b4567-1200-800/img_7667.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, russell weatherspoon, class, harnkess table"></p><p></p>
<p>Russell Weatherspoon, or "Spoon," as his students call him, took a seat at the sand-colored table in the center of his classroom at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.exeter.edu/">Phillips Exeter Academy</a><span>, a prestigious boarding school in Exeter, New Hampshire.</span></p>
<p>"Where do you want to start?" he asked the 11 upperclassmen enrolled in his social ethics course, signaling the start of class.</p>
<p>And that was the last we heard from Weatherspoon&nbsp;for a while.&nbsp;</p>
<p>"One of the parts that bothered me," a student began as he fanned the pages of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Theory-Contemporary-Concise-Edition/dp/1133049745">Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues</a>," "is on page ..."</p>
<p>For 70 minutes, the teenagers batted around text citations, asked open-ended questions, and led the discussion without interference. No one raised a hand. There were few lulls. And yet, no one talked over a peer.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This classroom experience is not unusual at Exeter, as </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11">I learned during my recent visit to the school</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p>In the 1930s, the academy established a model of teaching called the Harkness method, which calls for an oval table in every classroom, and places students in charge of their own learning. Schools around the world have <a href="http://www.exeter.edu/exeter_bulletin/12984_16588.aspx">studied and adapted its pedagogy</a>, but Exeter remains the only private high school (that I know of) to use the system in every one of its courses.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/545a9115eab8ea54608b4575-1200-800/img_7682-2.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, russell weatherspoon, class, harnkess table" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p>
<h3>History Of Harkness</h3>
<p>The story begins with Edward S. Harkness, an American philanthropist whose family was once the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/27/0927richest.html">largest holder of Standard Oil stocks</a> after the Rockefellers.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">He gave away an estimated $129 million before his death,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/edward_harkness">including a $5.8 million contribution to</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;Exeter.</span></p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/546e174f6bb3f7351fdac8f4-887-665/edward-harkness-phillips-exeter-academy.jpg" border="0" alt="edward harkness, phillips exeter academy" width="600" style="float: left;">When he bestowed the gift in 1930, Harkness challenged the school to use the money to develop a new way of teaching and learning. He wanted to do away with students sitting in rows and teachers lecturing at the head of the classroom.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The school came back with this proposal:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>Class size is limited to 12.</li>
<li>Students lead the discussion.</li>
<li>An oval-shaped table, named in the philanthropist's honor, stands in the center of the room — making students and instructor equal. They sit at the same height, can see one another from any seat at the table, and have "no corners to hide behind," as Harkness <a href="http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/hall_of_fame/edward_harkness">put it</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>For more than 80 years, this system has served Exeter students in and outside the classroom. If standardized testing scores are any indication of the Harkness method's success, it's worth noting that Exeter students averaged an SAT score of 2107 out of 2400, a full 610 points <a href="http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/averages">higher than the national average</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/545a91156bb3f718038b456e-1200-800/img_7784.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, chorus, class" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p>
<h3>Everyone Gets A Say At The Table</h3>
<p>The Harkness method, with its small group setting, comes with an obligation to come to class prepared. Otherwise it will be pretty obvious who did and didn't do their homework.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Speaking up at the Harkness table, however, is just as important as drawing out others around you.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Remember that one kid in your high school class who never knew when to keep quiet?</span></p>
<p>"I used to be one of them," one student told me during my recent visit to Exeter. "I was talking&nbsp;<em>a lot</em>. But Exeter teaches you more than talking. It teaches you to listen."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The entire day I spent at Exeter, I don't think I heard one student talk over another. Students allowed their peers to finish phrasing a question or developing an idea before jumping in, just as well as they remembered to cite the text. They are encouraged to wait three seconds before responding to what the last person said, and to begin their contribution by repeating part of what the previous person said.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/545a9117ecad0495188b4567-1200-800/img_7996-2.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, becky moore, class, harnkess table" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">During my visit, I witnessed students' "discussion etiquette training" in action, on even the most minute of scales.</span></p>
<p>English instructor Becky Moore, who has taught at Exeter for more than 24 years,&nbsp;began her 200-level English class with a warm-up: She challenged the students to recite the alphabet as a group.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">No one person could say two letters in a row, and if two people talked at the same time, the group had to start over. It began, "A," "B," "C," and so on, at random.</span></p>
<p>Halfway through the alphabet, the students reached a standstill. No one spoke. Finally, a small girl wearing glasses piped in with the next letter.</p>
<p>Why the lull? A student later explained, "Hillary was the only one who hadn't spoken yet, so I knew not to talk."</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/546f7de8ecad047a145fd47a-1200-800/img_7775-2.jpg" border="0" alt="harkness table, phillips exeter academy"></p>
<h3>Harkness Spreads Around The World</h3>
<p>When Edward S. Harkness envisioned a student-centered teaching method, he hoped it would reach far beyond Exeter. Today, that dream is being realized.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Exeter offers seven on-campus conferences for teachers, allowing them to sit in on summer classes and learn best practices in implementing a discussion-based pedagogy. Last year, according to <a href="http://www.exeter.edu/exeter_bulletin/12984_16588.aspx">The Exeter Bulletin</a>, 139 independent schools, 70 public schools, and 16 countries (as far as Australia, China, Paraguay, and Turkey) sent representatives to Exeter.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And at Exeter, the Harkness method continues to evolve. Each department adapts the system in a way that fits its curriculum. It was only in the last 20 years that the science department found a way to fit the Harkness method into a lab setting, and the math department is pioneering ways to present problems in a collaborative&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">scaffolding.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Harkness method is far from a "one size fits all" teaching system — just as every student's needs are unique. But when it works, it sure works well.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11" >What It's Like To Attend The Best Boarding School In America</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/phillips-exeter-harkness-table-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/high-school-photoshops-yearbook-pictures-2015-1Photo Company Allegedly Photoshops Students' Yearbook Photos To Make Them Look Thinnerhttp://www.businessinsider.com/high-school-photoshops-yearbook-pictures-2015-1
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 11:16:00 -0500Caroline Moss
<p>An all-girls high school has allegedly started photoshopping the school photos of its students to make them appear thinner.</p>
<p>One young woman <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/2rte9o/my_school_edited_my_yearbook_photo_to_make_me/">took her photo to Reddit and complained</a>. She didn't name her high school in the post, but this is what she wrote to accompany this photo:</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54affca46bb3f7620f141ef0-960-761/eemorwboh3wpktzk3afm.png" border="0" alt="Reddit Photoshop"></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I go to an all girls high school and today every senior got a new student ID. We had gotten one in the beginning of the school year and we were all unsure as to why we were given a second. After closer inspection we realized that our photos had be retouched far past smoothing out blemishes. Here is a list of changes made in my photo:</span></p>
<ul style="padding-left: 30px;">
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">face smoothing</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">skin recoloring</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">lip recoloring</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">eyebrow smoothing and reshaping</li>
<li style="padding-left: 30px;">face thinning</li>
</ul>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I was outraged! I have a round face that I have grown to love and now I get my photo back with a different face. The new photo no longer even looks like me but rather a prettier twin sister. When we go and have our photos taken we are flat out told that our skin will be retouched to hide blemishes. We are not told, however, that more drastic changes are made.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Going to an all girls school we are constantly reminded about positive body image and accepting ourselves for who we are. Having these changes made to make me appear thinner makes me wonder how must our school practices what they preach.</p>
<p>In May, a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/photoshop-yearbook-pictures-2014-5">high school in Utah was accused of photoshopping</a> the photos of its female students to make them look more modest, adding sleeves and camisoles to the photos to cover up parts of their bodies that the administration at&nbsp;<span>Wasatch High School deemed inappropriate.</span></p>
<p><span><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/538752ffeab8ea180fb3646d-720-469/hs-photoshop-de.jpg" border="0" alt="HS Photoshop"><br></span></p>
<p><a href="http://jezebel.com/all-girls-high-school-retouches-photos-to-make-students-1678483263?utm_campaign=socialfow_jezebel_twitter&amp;utm_source=jezebel_twitter&amp;utm_medium=socialflow"><span>(h/t Jezebel)</span></a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/high-school-photoshops-yearbook-pictures-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-popular-crowd-is-having-less-sex-and-doing-less-drugs-than-high-schoolers-think-2015-1The Popular Crowd Is Having Less Sex And Doing Fewer Drugs Than High Schoolers Thinkhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-popular-crowd-is-having-less-sex-and-doing-less-drugs-than-high-schoolers-think-2015-1
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 10:38:00 -0500Derek Thompson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4f47c48f6bb3f7ee3e000005-477-358/6194618566_33899d7faf_b.jpg" border="0" alt="house party teens drinking" width="477" height="358"></p><p>In Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Emperor's New Clothes" fraudsters sew the king a suit made of air but persuade his court that only the "unworthy" cannot see it. Although the king and his ministers harbor private concerns, all men fawn over the invisible threads to prove their own sophistication.</p>
<p>The emperor dances down the street. His subjects — confused, weirded out, suspecting that everybody else "sees" a garment — enthusiastically play along.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html">"How fine!"</a>&nbsp;they shout.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type1620.html#andersen">"What a perfect fit!"</a>&nbsp;It takes a child, too young to understand this pageantry of decorum, to point out that emperor is marching down the street buck naked.</p>
<p>Social psychologists have a fancy term for this sort of shared delusion. It is&nbsp;<em>pluralistic ignorance</em>, technically&nbsp;<a href="http://www.academia.edu/2067631/On_the_rationality_of_pluralistic_ignorance">defined</a>&nbsp;as "the psychological state characterized by the belief that one’s private attitudes and judgments are different from those of others, even though one’s public behavior is identical.”</p>
<p>More simply: It's many people collectively praising a king's robes while privately seeing only a naked monarch. It's peer pressure dipped in irony.</p>
<p>The emperor's invisible threads are strewn across some of history's most shameful episodes. There is evidence, for example, that many Germans privately thought that Hitler was a barbarian, but they pretended to support his policies because they mistakenly assumed their views were unique. Historical accounts suggest that many white southern Americans in the early 20th century deplored Jim Crow laws, but they felt compelled to support them.</p>
<p>These examples suggest, rather frighteningly, that a group of people can engage in systematic bigotry, even when a majority of them are&nbsp;<em>not actually bigots.</em>That's not group-think, where people think and act the same way when they get together. Rather it's&nbsp;<em>group-ignorance</em>: people thinking one thing and doing another, because they are deluded about the majority's real views and then are conforming to that delusion.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/53d2b6f069beddbb48820421-1000-449/shutterstock_188040776.jpg" border="0" alt="teens college party dancing concert"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Perhaps you're looking back up at the headline by this point and wondering what does all this have to do with high school?</span></p>
<p>In fact, what&nbsp;<em>doesn't</em>&nbsp;peer pressure conducted under a cloud of ignorance have to do with high school? To be a teenager is to be the subject of nearly universal misunderstanding. Teens appear as strangers to their own parents, as hormonal monsters on television, and as flighty naifs, with smartphones grafted to their palms, in the media.</p>
<p>But it turns out that teens are just as hopeless at assessing themselves.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25365121">A new study of high school behavior</a>&nbsp;finds that young people wildly over-estimate the sex and drug life of their classmates and even their own cliques.</p>
<p>The survey's summary could read: Everybody in high school thinks everybody else is having more sex than they actually are.</p>
<p>Popular kids and male jocks aren't having nearly as much sex, or doing nearly as many drugs, as other high schoolers assume, said Geoff Cohen, a coauthor and professor at Stanford University. "Teenagers grossly overestimate the amount of substance abuse of [pot heads] and the sex life of jocks," he said. "We knew there were stereotypes, but we were surprised by the level of caricature."</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/549880a8eab8ea954f371e78-1200-924/200067895-002.jpg" border="0" alt="party drunk binge drinking alcohol shots"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">High schoolers assumed that jocks and popular kids drank more alcohol and had more sex than average students. But jocks' and popular teens' self-reported sexual behavior wasn't significantly different from the “brains” or the “others.” (The fact that kids vastly over-estimate popular men's self-reported sexual behavior is particularly interesting, because &nbsp;were going to lie about their own record, they would probably “lie up” to exaggerate their romantic successes.)</span><em style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</em><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The misconceptions didn’t always skew toward deviant behavior, either. Smart kids reported studying only about half as much as their classmates assumed.</span></p>
<p class="p1">"People thought the popular kids had lots of friends and the brains have no friends, but it turns that everybody had about the same number of friends," said Mitchell Prinstein, another coauthor of the paper and a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (The other coauthors included Sarah W. Helms, Sophia Choukas-Bradley, Laura Widman, and Matteo Giletta.)</p>
<p class="p1">Some of the most severe misperceptions — regarding popular kids' cigarette use and jocks' marijuana habits, for example — were&nbsp;<em>within</em>&nbsp;cliques and groupings. Indeed, not only do less-cool kids exaggerate the lifestyles of high school aristocracy, but also popular kids vastly overestimate the sex and drug behavior of other popular kids. An only-slightly-oversimplified summary of the survey might read:&nbsp;<em>Everybody in high school thinks everybody else is having more sex and doing more drugs than they actually are.</em></p>
<p class="p1"><em><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5446f26469bedd3d568b4569-1200-800/450249558.jpg" border="0" alt="Teens Chipotle San Francisco"></em><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">So what if adolescents think their peers are kinkier than they actually are? Prinstein said perceptions about drug use — even misperceptions — can become reality.</span></p>
<p>"The number-one reason why adolescents engage in risky behaviors is peer influence,” he said.&nbsp;<strong>"</strong>Kids are influenced by their perception of what their peers are doing. But their perception is wrong!" The researchers showed that 9th graders with more exaggerated ideas of their popular peers' drug use were more likely to do drugs throughout high school. Other research by Prinstein and Cohen has showed that when you randomly assign kids in a laboratory setting to think that popular kids are deviants, they become more likely to endorse similar risky behavior.</p>
<p>I asked both professors if there was evidence that high schoolers would do fewer drugs if they knew about their peers' behavior, Is it enough to simply announce that the emperor has no clothes?</p>
<p>When each member of a frat has qualms about hazing, and yet they collectively force new members to over-drink, bad weeds grow from good soil.</p>
<p class="p1">Changing misperceptions is a little more complicated than that, both authors said. "They’ve hung signs around college campuses that say how much students actually drink. But nobody believes those signs, because they think the adults who put them up are lying,” Prinstein said. "Or they’ll say, ‘That’s the average for the campus, but what’s the average for the cool kids?’"</p>
<p class="p1">What's more, adolescents readily gravitate to norms, and schools that publicize student drinking behavior might be accidentally endorsing drinking, Cohen said. "There is a checkered history to social norms marketing, like telling kids how much their peers actually drink on campus. What if the kids who don’t drink much at all say, ‘That’s more than I thought!’ Suddenly, they start drinking more.”</p>
<p class="p1"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/549880fceab8ea964f371e78-1200-800/127490683.jpg" border="0" alt="Party drunk binge drinking shots"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Cohen grabbed a medical metaphor to suggest a better way. In health care, he said, the value of "precision medicine” is to tailor treatments to individual people rather than treat a large population with one drug. The same should be done in social interventions, he said. The equivalent of “mass inoculation”—e.g.: hanging signs in school halls—could discourage some kids from risky stuff, but alert other students to the idea it’s normal to be a little bit bad. The precision-medicine approach would identify at-risk students with dangerously exaggerated impressions of drug use.</span></p>
<p>Personally, I've come away two big conclusions from reading this study and spending the last day talking to, and thinking about, its authors' comments.</p>
<p><strong>1. We’re not so different. </strong>The fact that various cliques exaggerate one another's behavior suggests that high school students are more like each other than they think. Recall Prinstein's observation: "It turns that everybody had about the same number of friends."</p>
<p>This is kind of a beautiful thought — that the jerks, jocks, jokers, and just normal kids from our high school were divided more by their grotesque misperceptions than by their actual behavioral differences. As the Breakfast Club kids write&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/11/the-science-of-cliques/382570/">at the end of the movie</a>, "Each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case.” (Or, as these results suggest, perhaps none of us is).&nbsp;As every villain in Hollywood history has intoned to a nemesis: “We’re not so different, you and I."</p>
<p><strong>2. Bad weeds from good soil.&nbsp;</strong>We conform, not to the world as it exists, but to the world as we think it exists. It doesn't quite rise to the level of revelation that people often mimic other people. But the vicious cycle of pluralistic ignorance is that each individual in a group can privately understand that the group's public behavior is bad; yet nothing will change if each member considers her belief unique.</p>
<p>When each brother in a fraternity has qualms about rough hazing, yet they collectively force new member to over-drink — or, far worse, when families are bystanders to civil rights abuses, while privately condemning bigotry in their bedrooms — bad weeds grow from good soil. Even moral can people contribute to harmful norms. In high school and beyond, perhaps the best way to break the vicious cycle of pluralistic ignorance is to rediscover the bravery of Andersen's fictional child — and to call a naked emperor naked.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-popular-crowd-is-having-less-sex-and-doing-less-drugs-than-high-schoolers-think-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12Bill Gates Is Revolutionizing How History Is Taught, And We Went To A Poor NYC High School To See It In Actionhttp://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12
Wed, 07 Jan 2015 14:24:00 -0500Melia Robinson
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54ac12596bb3f7fd4f826099-1200-800/img_9973-corrected-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p><p></p>
<p>Bryan, a teenager from Brooklyn, says his history class has changed his understanding of the universe.</p>
<p>"It's not like normal history. It's not like, 'This guy did <em>this</em> back in <em>this</em> time,'" he says. "But now I can say, I care about the Big Bang — if it was real — or I care about the stars. Because we came from the dust of stars. It makes you feel kind of cool. You feel connected to the universe."</p>
<p>Bryan's school, the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, is one of 1,200 high schools around the world that offer <a href="https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home">Big History</a>, a radical new way of teaching world history that is raising eyebrows in education circles. Beyond its divisive method of instruction, the class has become a hot-rod thanks to its lead investor: Bill Gates.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54ac125869bedde26d0a7cf6-1200-800/img_0158-6.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>Created by historian David Christian, Big History replaces the linear telling of history with a holistic approach, combining disciplines including biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, psychology, and philosophy, to give students a fuller understanding of the human narrative and their place in it. The curriculum hinges on collective learning, the idea that we learn not as an individual, but by building on a wealth of knowledge passed on as a group.</p>
<p>Christian, 67, developed the class as a young professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. The cross-disciplinary nature of Big History captivated his students, who were tired of memorization-based history, and every year, the class was oversubscribed. Soon teachers from around the world were calling to ask about implementing something similar.</p>
<p>In 2005, Christian taped all 48 lectures in a small studio outside Washington. It wasn't flashy. Christian, a chipper Australian with patches of grey hair around his ears and a permanent smirk, stands in front of a brick wall adorned with plastic ivy and talks into the camera in half-hour increments. <a href="http://www.thegreatcourses.com/bighistory">The Teaching Company released them as a DVD set</a> for its "Great Courses" series in early 2008.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54a07c80eab8ea240aed842f-800-600/3feaf5a930ecff54d82d3ef0ec5f5e41379098df_1600x1200.jpg" border="0" alt="david christian, big history"></p>
<p>As luck would have it, billionaire tech mogul Bill Gates watched the DVDs that year, while exercising on a treadmill in his home gym, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0">the New York Times reported in October</a>. He was sold.</p>
<p>Gates and Christian met up shortly after and agreed to adapt Big History for high school minds and share it across America. Gates put up $10 million of his own money to finance course development, teacher training, and content creation, including a course website that offers video, audio, and dynamic primary sources in lieu of a traditional textbook.</p>
<p>Since 2008, the curriculum has grown to reach 15,000 high school students in 1,200 schools worldwide, according to Big History Project organizers. It will be available at hundreds more classrooms by fall 2015, and&nbsp;the University of California network&nbsp;has approved it as an acceptable credit for admission requirements in the same category as&nbsp;<s></s>World History.</p>
<p>Still, a lot of people aren't happy that the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-fabulous-life-of-bill-gates-2014-6">richest man in America</a> is bankrolling such a dramatic change in how history is taught.</p>
<p>"In the eyes of the critics, he's really not an expert," Scott L. Thomas, dean of the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html?_r=0">told the New York Times</a>. "He just happens to be a guy that watched a DVD and thought it was a good idea and had a bunch of money to fund it."</p>
<p>I visited the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, one of the four schools in New York City that offers Big History, to see the class in action.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54ac12596da811d939598277-1200-800/img_9906-5.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>At first glance, Brooklyn School For Collaborative Studies (BCS) does not look cutting-edge. Located in Red Hook, an insular, low-income neighborhood cut off from public transportation, the school is one of the most racially diverse public high schools in New York City. Seventy percent of students qualify for reduced or free school lunches — an indication that their families suffer extreme poverty.</p>
<p>The facility is underwhelming and small, taking up just three cinderblock-walled halls, and it smells faintly of cat litter. During class, students walk around carrying bathroom passes just to pass the time. Occasionally, a teacher or administrator pops his head out a classroom door to ask what they're doing.</p>
<p>There's one classroom at the end of the hall, though, that buzzes with excitement. Thirty teenagers sit inside and debate today's discussion topic: "Why do humans create historical narratives?" In particular, teacher Scott Henstrand is asking what incentivizes DreamWorks to create "The Croods," an animated movie about a family of cavemen, rather than another princess or superhero kids' flick?</p>
<p>To watch the students debate is to sit front-row at a tennis match. They rattle off observations, while tacking jargony phrases — "I kind of disagree with Anthony because I don’t think it’s an opinion, I feel like it’s an <em>educated inference</em>," one girl says — onto each sentence.</p>
<p>Even when their contributions lack substance or elegance, they're passionate. Words like "Goldilock Conditions," "claim-testers," and other Big History vernacular slip into conversation with ease.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54ac1259ecad0423236e9a2f-1200-800/img_9993-4.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>When Henstrand hears Ayana, a petite girl with a propensity to begin every sentence with "I agree [or disagree] because," use some of Christian's language in discussion, he claps his hands together.</p>
<p>Henstrand, who's been a teacher for 22 years, asks again: Why would DreamWorks make "The Croods?" Students speculate. Are they teaching kids about our ancestors in a funny and engaging way, so it's "not boring like an original document"? Or, does the movie aim to negate young people's religious beliefs, and turn them onto a more scientific view of the dawn of man?</p>
<p>Then another student introduces some cynicism into the discussion. "They probably sat down in some meeting and said, 'We need to make a movie that every kid will want to see,'" she suggests. "The main reason was for money, not to educate children of whatever."</p>
<p>Henstrand returns to the SMART Board, an electronic whiteboard, and after a quick search reports to the class that "The Croods" <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-report-croods-opens-430571">cost a reported $135 million to make</a> and <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=croods.htm">grossed more than $500 million worldwide</a>.</p>
<p>"The total budget of our school is $6 million for a year," Henstrand says. "Just want to put that out there."</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54ac1258ecad0474256e9a31-1200-800/img_9880-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>Like Gates, Henstrand stumbled upon Big History. He saw <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history?language=en">David Christian's TED Talk</a>, thought it was pretty neat, and decided to show it in the biology class where he was substitute-teaching the following day.</p>
<p>The students went wild for it. There were no dates, battles, or names to memorize. It was a story about the human experience, seen through multiple lenses.</p>
<p>With their prompting, Henstrand approached Big History about bringing the course to BCS. At the time, the class was in its pilot phase, being used and fine-tuned by just seven teachers. Henstrand entered at the next wave of implementation, with 60 teachers.</p>
<p>"I was an earth science teacher," says Henstrand, a veteran of the New York City public school system. He's taught every grade from first through twelfth, and the creases behind his thin-rimmed glasses show it.</p>
<p>"What Big History does is it brings forth every discipline. Science becomes another medium for understanding history, and that resonated very deeply [with me]," Henstrand says. "Usually when you're in one content area, it's hard to make deep connections. All of them are needed to give at least some glimpse of the human narrative."</p>
<p>"So for me, that was like a gift," he says. "I get to teach this class and run amok."</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54ac12586da8117039598277-1200-800/img_9846-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>Henstrand says no two schools teach Big History alike. Over the last few years, he and a team of three history teachers developed a version of the class that would work for their students.</p>
<p>BCS splits the Big History curriculum into two years, which is unusual for the program: Big History I for freshmen and Big History II for sophomores. They are required classes; the school decided shortly into its first year teaching Big History that it would no longer offer Global History.</p>
<p>It was an easy choice, according to principal Scill Chan.</p>
<p>"[Students] are used to these global survey courses that are about dates, battles, figures, and big names," she says. "But if you ask anybody, that's not the type of knowledge that they retain or that is useful in their professional lives." Alternatively, Big History teaches students to be curious, empathize with other people's perspectives, and defend their arguments.</p>
<p>So far, it appears to be having a positive impact.</p>
<p>Students' writing proficiency seems to have improved drastically, for one. Henstrand says by midyear, more and more students use evidence to support claims in their papers. While the full results of a wider survey aren't public yet, a Big History Project representative says the initial results are promising.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54ac12596bb3f7b353826097-1200-800/img_9909-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>And despite the obstacles students face in their home lives, BCS boasts an extraordinary graduation rate of 91% — <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-high-school-graduation-rates-inch-up-1403572053">30 percentage points above the citywide average</a>.</p>
<p>Chan, who became principal in August and has worked at the school for seven years, says decisions like implementing Big History keep their senior classes full.</p>
<p>"Engagement for us is a big thing, because as they get older, we lose more and more students because the life demands or distractions get bigger and bigger," Chan says. "Tapping into that intellectual engagement — getting them to think about, 'how will we use the past to figure out the future?' — that really gets them to 'buy in.'"</p>
<p>It was a strategic move on their part to schedule the class for freshmen and sophomores. Big History allows them to place a really strong teacher, like Henstrand and his team, in the earlier grades so students have a higher chance of passing the class, which gives them credits and confidence.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54ac1258eab8eaf934cf6c19-1200-800/img_9805-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>While education activists and the media freak out about Gates' involvement in the program, Henstrand and Chan are nothing but grateful for the opportunities <a href="https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home">Big History Project</a> has provided.</p>
<p>"As a public school, we are always strapped for resources. So we embrace partnerships with private organizations," Chan says. From her office on the fourth floor, she can hear police cars sound their sirens on the street below.</p>
<p>In addition to professional development for teachers and access to the course website, Big History provides BCS a small classroom budget to help offset the cost of printing student-journals. There's no fee for using the curriculum.</p>
<p>"Anybody who's going to over-politicize that type of partnership, I would welcome them, one day in their life, to come into a public school," Chan says, "and experience what it's like in the shoes of the public educators, who work everyday trying to make a huge difference in a young person's life."</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54ac1259ecad0447206e9a30-1200-800/img_9904-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>When the bell rings and the second-year section of Big History comes to an end, a group of 10 freshmen and sophomores hold back to chat with me about the class. Henstrand excuses himself and a girl in a cheerleader uniform closes the door behind him.</p>
<p>I ask, "is Big History like any history class you've taken before?" And the students answer "no" in unison.</p>
<p>"It's not only history, it takes on many different things — history, science, a whole bunch of different categories," one student starts, adjusting his backwards baseball hat.</p>
<p>"It's not only focusing on what humans did. Like, normal history classes will focus on the US or other countries, but this history class more focuses on the history of the universe and talks more about the 'big questions,'" another student says.</p>
<p>"Like, how the world began."</p>
<p>"Why we're here."</p>
<p>Watching these teens communicate, you can see how they lean on each other. One student fills in the gaps of the other's observation.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54ac12586bb3f7e952826095-1200-800/img_0112-9.jpg" border="0" alt="Big History Project, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies"></p>
<p>They agree that Big History has broadened their horizons in ways they didn't expect. One student, Yordi, says Big History has changed his religious beliefs, and that the science "makes sense" to him.</p>
<p>Another student, Julien, who says he excels more in classes that evaluate students based on tests and quizzes, says Big History challenges him to articulate and defend a point off the top of his head — a new skill for which he is grateful.</p>
<p>What they appreciate most is collective learning, the cornerstone of the Big History pedagogy. The idea that we're not alone in the pursuit of knowledge gives them confidence to speak up and share their opinions, without fear of rejection or embarrassment.</p>
<p>Bryan, a tall young man who sits in the back of the class, summarizes his peers' sentiments.</p>
<p>"I think of it this way — as a tree with many roots," he says. "There's not one specific starting point. There's a bunch of different ones before you even get to the trunk of the tree."</p>
<p>There's no wrong answer in Big History.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11" >What It's Like To Attend The Best Boarding School In America</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/big-history-class-in-brooklyn-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/tobacco-marijuana-high-school-usage-2014-12America's High School Kids Prefer Weedhttp://www.businessinsider.com/tobacco-marijuana-high-school-usage-2014-12
Tue, 23 Dec 2014 15:09:03 -0500Elena Holodny
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5499c5c56da811bc705ef5fb-1165-856/ms-marijuana.png" border="0" alt="MS Marijuana"></p><p>Bad news for tobacco companies: America's teens prefer marijuana.</p>
<p>The latest research from a Morgan Stanley's tobacco analysts <span>reveals</span>&nbsp;two major trends in teen smoking habits.</p>
<p>First, high schoolers are smoking less and less cigarettes. Only 10.3% have reportedly smoked a cigarette in the past 30 days, down from 27.4% in 2000.</p>
<p>And second, the gap between marijuana and cigarette usage is widening. Until 2008, cigarettes were the preferred option, but now weed is clearly the go-to for those in high-school.</p>
<p>So what does this mean for big tobacco?</p>
<p>"In our view, any industry participation in the legalized marijuana industry is highly unlikely barring the passage of federal legislation legalizing its sale and usage, although we would expect the industry to closely monitor the market's development at the state level," writes Morgan Stanley's Matthew Grainger.</p>
<p>But these companies may soon be asked to do more than just monitor the situation. Other analysts argue that big tobacco companies will have to start addressing questions about marijuana sooner than they think.</p>
<p>"With this quickly changing view of marijuana across the US," <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rbc-analyst-on-marijuana-2014-12">wrote RBC Capital Markets' Nik Modi</a> earlier in December, "we believe it is only a matter of time until investors start asking questions about how it will fit into the bigger picture."</p>
<p>"And while every tobacco company management we have spoken to on this topic has been unwilling to discuss it, we believe full federal legalization of marijuana in the US would likely lead tobacco companies to reconsider this space," Modi added.</p>
<p>So as Americans <span>(especially young high schoolers)</span>&nbsp;increasingly turn towards marijuana, big tobacco companies are really going to have to start thinking about the numbers soon.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-income-bracket-savings-cheaper-oil-2014-12#ixzz3Mkmysis3" >Here's How Much Money Americans Will Save Thanks To Cheaper Gas</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rosenberg-black-swan-china-housing-market-2014-12#ixzz3Mkn2RBSb" >ROSENBERG: There's A 'Black Swan' Stewing In China</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tobacco-marijuana-high-school-usage-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/trader-mohammed-islam-made-it-up-2014-12The High-School Trader Rumored To Have Made $72 Million Admits He Made The Whole Thing Uphttp://www.businessinsider.com/trader-mohammed-islam-made-it-up-2014-12
Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:34:00 -0500Julia La Roche
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54903bebecad041e13ab5531-521-390/mohammed-islam-7.png" border="0" alt="Mohammed Islam"></p><p>A New York City high-school student <a href="http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2014/mohammed-islam-stock-trading/">featured in New York magazine's "Reasons to Love New York" issue</a> for making millions trading the stock market <a href="http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy-genius-investor-made-it-all-up/#.VI-TKmmOjuo.twitter">admitted to the New York Observer on Monday night</a> that he made it all up.</p>
<p><a href="http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2014/mohammed-islam-stock-trading/">New York magazine's Jessica Pressler reported</a> that Stuyvesant High School senior Mohammed Islam, 17, was rumored to have made $72 million from trading the market. The article also said Islam went on record saying his net worth was in the "high eight figures" and that he had already purchased a BMW and rented a Manhattan apartment. Islam's buddy <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Damir Tulemaganbetov, who was also featured in the article, perpetuated the story.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The story was widely picked up in the media. The two high schoolers were also scheduled to appear on CNBC's "Halftime Report." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">After speaking to numerous folks who know Islam and reaching the pair on the phone while en route to CNBC's studios (only Tulemaganbetov would speak to us), Business Insider concluded that <a href="http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2014/mohammed-islam-stock-trading/">it was a rumor spun out of control.</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Soon after, CNBC's Scott Wapner <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/102269980">got Islam to acknowledge he was not worth $72 million</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">On Monday, Islam and Tulemaganbetov finally came clean in an interview with the <a href="http://observer.com/2014/12/exclusive-new-york-mags-boy-genius-investor-made-it-all-up/#.VI-TKmmOjuo.twitter">New York Observer's Ken Kurson</a> alongside the crisis public relations firm <span>5WPR and attorney Ed Mermelstein of Rheem, Bell &amp; Mermelstein. </span><br></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Islam admitted that he made up being worth eight figures and that he never actually traded the stock market, other than through simulated trades. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>Islam also told The Observer that his parents were mad at him when the New York magazine article came out. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>"Honestly, my dad wanted to disown me. My mom basically said she’d never talk to me. Their morals are that if I lie about it and don’t own up to it then they can no longer trust me. … They knew it was false and they basically wanted to kill me and I haven’t spoken to them since," Islam said. </span><span><br></span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>Both high schoolers said they were sorry. </span></span></span></p>
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<h3><strong><br>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/benfords-law-to-detect-financial-fraud-2014-12">How Forensic Accountants Use Benford's Law To Detect Fraud</a></strong></h3>
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<h3> </h3><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trader-mohammed-islam-made-it-up-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-72-m-rumor-2014-12The Story Of The High-School Trader Who Made $72 Million Is A Rumor Spun Out Of Controlhttp://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-72-m-rumor-2014-12
Mon, 15 Dec 2014 12:15:00 -0500Julia La Roche
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/548efe8069bedd1e71d40513-501-375/mohammed-islam-5.png" border="0" alt="Mohammed Islam">A lot of folks are buzzing about </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">17-year-old </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Stuyvesant High School senior Mohammed "Mo" Islam, who is rumored to have made $72 million from trading.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>New York Magazine's </span><a href="http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2014/mohammed-islam-stock-trading/">Jessica Pressler profiled</a><span> him in a recent issue.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>But some people who know Islam told Business Insider that they strongly believe that the $72 million figure is just a rumor — a rumor that Islam hasn't denied.</span></span></span></p>
<p>In the article, he acknowledged to Pressler over caviar and apple juice that his net worth was in the "high eight figures."</p>
<p><span>A source familiar with the story told Business Insider that Islam is not worth $72 million. The source believes it's a rumor started by Islam's friends or partners that was perpetuated by the New York Magazine article. </span></p>
<p>Pressler has defended the story on Twitter. She claimed <a href="https://twitter.com/jpressler/status/544523830954586113">she saw a bank statement with the eight figures</a> and is comfortable with what's in the piece. She also noted the story appeared in New York Magazine's "<span>Reasons to Love New York" issue and pointed out the magazine</span> <a href="https://twitter.com/jpressler/status/544524219955286018">"is not a financial publication."<br></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Business Insider actually featured Islam on our list of the top 20 "</span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/20-under-20-in-finance-2013-11"><span>Teen Traders Trying To Take Over The Finance World</span>"</a> <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">just over a year ago. He was nominated by his peers, who made no claims about his net worth. </span></p>
<p><span>In a phone interview on Monday, Islam's partner Damir Tulemaganbetov, who was also in the New York Magazine article, noted the $72 million figure was described as a "rumor." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"Let me put it this way ... it's stated as a rumor," <span>Tulemaganbetov told us when we asked him if he would deny the $72 million figure. He was with Islam in a car headed to CNBC's studios in New Jersey.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>"All the hype, [Islam] deserves it," Tulemaganbetov said, adding that he is </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"pretty sure" Islam is a "a great trader" and a "genius."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Business Insider asked for audited numbers or profit-and-loss statements to prove that Islam's net worth is close to $72 million. </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Tulemaganbetov refused. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Islam himself did not respond to our email this morning requesting the numbers. He also would not get on the phone when Business Insider learned he was riding in the car to CNBC. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">The investment club for young traders, of which Islam is a member, sent Business Insider this statement regarding the $72 million figure:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">It has been brought to the attention of the Leaders Investment Club that Mohammed Islam has been rumored to have made $72,000,000 through making trades in the stock market. After performing due diligence and talking with Mohammed Islam himself, we have determined that these claims are false and simply been blown up by the media in the interests of sensationalism.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Islam's partner <span>Tulemaganbetov, however, would not be that clear in his conversation with Business Insider.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>"We can't just talk about the numbers. It's not just about the money," Tulemaganbetov said. "We're on</span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> the verge of a lot of great things in our lives so we can't just focus on providing you the statements. We're on the verge of a lot of great things</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">. We are going to talk to CNBC."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Again, Business Insider pressed the issue of the P&amp;L statements. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>"All those statements ... that's good for you. We know what we're doing. We're managing this whole hype and everything. We are trying to work with it. We were never expecting it and never denied. You have no proof."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Tulemaganbetov told us that Islam didn't expect all the attention. He just expected a magazine article. </span></p>
<p>"The guy became famous all over the world in 24 hours," he said. "He's all over the world. The next thing we wake up and he's famous. This guy is a celebrity all over the world right now." </p>
<p><span>Tulemaganbetov told us that they were going to "make it clear on CNBC." </span></p>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><p>We'll be watching<em>.</em><em style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </em></p>
<h3><strong>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/100-year-old-math-teacher-happy-success-2014-12">Here's The Formula For A Long And Happy Life From A 100-Year-Old Math Teacher</a></strong></h3>
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<p><strong> </strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-72-m-rumor-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-high-school-trader-2014-12Meet The NYC High School Student Who's Rumored To Have Made Millions Trading Oil And Gold Futureshttp://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-high-school-trader-2014-12
Mon, 15 Dec 2014 06:08:00 -0500Julia La Roche
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/548ebb716da8113c4ef2bb49-521-391/mohammed-islam-2.png" border="0" alt="Mohammed Islam"></p><p>New York Magazine's <a href="http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2014/mohammed-islam-stock-trading/">Jessica Pressler reports</a> that Stuyvesant High School senior Mohammed "Mo" Islam is rumored among his friends and classmates to have made $72 million trading the stock market.&nbsp;</p>
<p>While having caviar and apple juice with his buddies, Islam acknowledged to Pressler that his net worth was in the "high eight figures." Later that day, he was going to meet a hedge funder who "basically wants to give us $150 million."&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">At only 17, Islam has already rented an apartment in New York, but his parents won't let him stay there until he turns 18. He also bought a BMW even though he doesn't have his license yet.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>We profiled Islam about a year ago as a member of our <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/20-under-20-in-finance-2013-11#mohammed-islam-16-got-introduced-to-penny-stocks-by-his-cousin-when-he-was-11-years-old-he-likes-to-trade-oil-and-gold-futures-these-days-4">"20 under 20" in finance</a>&nbsp;when we&nbsp;noticed a trend among teenagers trading the market. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Here's what he told us then:&nbsp;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Location:</strong>&nbsp;New York City</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Investing Style:&nbsp;</strong>My main markets now are Crude Oil futures and Gold futures, and I trade small- to mid-cap equities when the futures don’t present a good trade. I trade mainly based on volatility and volume. My strategy revolves around price-action trading and some macro.&nbsp;<br><br><strong>Favorite Book:</strong>&nbsp;"<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator-Wiley-Trading/dp/1592801943">Reminiscences of A Stock Operator</a>"&nbsp;by Edwin Lefevre<br><br><strong>Role Model:</strong>&nbsp;"I would have to say that Paul Tudor Jones is a really big inspiration to me because of his determination and talent. Mr. Jones' personality and technique are what make him so successful, and I aspire to become even 1% of the man he is. He went through obstacles yet still came out on top."&nbsp;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Major Accomplishment:</strong>&nbsp;"When I learned that I needed discipline, a strategy that had been back tested, and enough capital, I buckled down and made sure I didn’t make one more trade until I had done that. I traded using my plan and didn’t go astray and followed the cardinal rule of minimizing losses and maximizing profits. This made me profitable, and to this day I look upon that as a major goal I accomplished."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Future Plans:</strong>&nbsp;"My future plan consists of becoming a hedge fund manager. I plan to hopefully attend a finance-oriented college after graduating from Stuy and major in finance and economics. My main future plan is to continue trading, learn from the best, and hopefully be able to find a mentor who is a great trader."</p>
<p>Perhaps he'll <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-marchese-young-hedge-fund-manager-2014-11">start a fund out of his college dorm room,</a> too.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Business Insider has learned that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-72-m-rumor-2014-12">the $72 million figure is a rumor.</a>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/20-under-20-in-finance-2013-11" >THE 20 UNDER 20: The Teenage Traders Taking Over The Finance World</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mohammed-islam-high-school-trader-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-cutthroat-world-of-elite-public-schools-2014-12Inside The Cutthroat World Of Elite Public Schoolshttp://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-cutthroat-world-of-elite-public-schools-2014-12
Sun, 07 Dec 2014 17:41:34 -0500Alia Wong
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5356985a6bb3f7e31a9bb139-600-/high-school-students-studying-classroom.jpg" border="0" alt="High School Students Studying Classroom" width="600"></p><p>In September 2012, the NAACP’s legal arm joined forces with two other advocacy groups to file a <a href="http://www.naacpldf.org/files/case_issue/Specialized%20High%20Schools%20Complaint.pdf">federal civil rights complaint</a> against New York City’s public school system. The issue at hand was—and still is—the city’s nine elite public high schools. Like most public high schools in the city, these schools can choose who attends. But the elite schools are their own animal: Whereas other schools look at a range of criteria to determine students’ eligibility, eight of these nine elite institutions admit applicants based exclusively on how the students score on a rigorous, two-and-a-half-hour-long standardized test.</p>
<p>The test-only admissions policy is touted by supporters as a tactic that promotes fairness and offers the best way to identify the city’s most gifted students. But the complaint, which is still pending, tells a different story—one of modern-day segregation, in which poor kids of color are getting left behind.</p>
<p>"As a result of the [New York City Department of Education’s] exclusive, unjustified, and singular reliance on the [exam], many fully qualified, high-potential students are denied access to the life-changing experiences that the Specialized High Schools offer," the complaint says. "In a community as diverse as New York City, it is particularly critical that these pathways to leadership be ‘visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.’ ... Yet, year after year, thousands of academically talented African-American and Latino students who take the test are denied admission to the Specialized High Schools at rates far higher than those for other racial groups."</p>
<p>But New York City is just one of many cities across the country where this sort of cherry-picking happens. Public schools in cities across the country—schools intended to break down the walls typical of expensive, elite private institutions by opening up access to stimulating, quality education for kids of all means—are closed in their admissions. In other words, kids aren’t just automatically enrolled because they live in the neighborhood—they have to apply to get in. As a result, their student populations are often far less diverse than they should be. And, sometimes, kids who would otherwise be eligible for these schools never get to enjoy them.</p>
<p>New York City epitomizes the shortcomings of such schools, largely because of its unusual test-only policy. Still, although testing is a key force behind those shortcomings, it is one of several culprits when it comes to the flaws of selective enrollment in public education. Selective-admissions policies can easily shortchange disadvantaged kids when they include as criteria such as middle-school attendance records or grade-point averages and fail to consider non-classroom factors, too. Even simply requiring student candidates (and their parents) to be proactive, to take the time to fill out what are often laborious applications risks discriminating against the less fortunate.</p>
<p>National data on selective-admissions schools is limited—so limited that it prompted Chester Finn Jr., president emeritus of the right-leaning Fordham Institute, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/opinion/gifted-students-deserve-more-opportunities.html?_r=2&amp;">to conduct his own survey</a> in 2012. The country, he discovered, is home to some 165 of these institutions—"exam schools," as he calls them—or 1 percent of all public high schools. These schools, some of which are centuries old, are concentrated in <a href="http://educationnext.org/files/ednext_20124_finn_map1.jpg">31 states</a>, including nearly three dozen total in New York City, Chicago, and Boston alone. All but three of these 31 states are located in the eastern half of the country, the outliers being California, Nevada, and Arizona. (Meanwhile, nearly half of all states have <a href="http://ecs.force.com/mbdata/mbquestU?SID=a0i70000006fu14&amp;rep=OE13206&amp;Q=Q3653">specific laws</a> that set priorities for districts to follow when accepting students for open enrollment, according to the Education Commission of the States.)</p>
<p>Selective-admissions programs are in part symptomatic of a broader, <a href="http://interactive.wttw.com/centralstandard/selective-enrollment">three-decade-old</a> reform movement that has aimed to overcome the "mediocre educational performance" of the country’s students as highlighted in the landmark report <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED226006.pdf">"A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform</a>." They’re also an example of "<a href="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/does-school-choice-work">school choice</a>," the tenet that parents should have options when it comes to their kids’ education, even when it’s free. And according to <a href="http://tcf.org/experts/detail/richard-d.-kahlenberg">Richard Kahlenberg</a>, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the author of The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action, cities often have multiple incentives for retaining or establishing selective-admissions high schools.</p>
<p>"The idea was that, if you wanted to provide an excellent, gifted, and talented education for public school students, one could do a better job of that if in large cities there were specialized schools that would bring academically talented students together," said Kahlenberg, who <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/opinion/new-york-citys-top-public-schools-need-diversity.html?_r=2">opposes</a> test-only admissions policies such as those in New York City. Secondly, selective-enrollment schools "are very sought after by upper-middle class people who might not consider using public schools if it weren't for the selective-enrollment institutions. Essentially, it’s a way of ensuring greater participation from wealthier families who might otherwise move to the suburbs."</p>
<p>But "the trick," he said, "is you don’t want the selective-enrollment schools to become enclaves of privilege that are separate and unequal from the rest of the system."</p>
<p>Selective-enrollment high schools have long been caught at the center of legal debates over the fairness of their admissions policies. Early efforts to ensure desegregation at these schools resulted in <a href="http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/government/5430-remaining-elite-ensuring-diversity-boston-chicago-a-new-york-wrestle-with-admissions-to-special-high-schools">racial quotas in Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco</a>, but those policies were eventually all lifted, in large part because of lawsuits challenging their constitutionality.</p>
<p>Now, many of these selective-enrollment institutions face a new set of dilemmas as they come under fire for admitting far smaller percentages of minority students than other public schools. And, as Betheny Gross, a senior research analyst at the Center for Reinventing Public Education, noted, getting into selective-enrollment schools typically requires having proactive parents who know how to navigate the system—a resource many children lack.</p>
<p>"There are kids whose parents aren’t as mobilized or might not be as informed," said Gross, who commended selective schools that automatically screen all students in their district for eligibility, not just the ones who went out of their way to take an admissions test. "There’s an entry layer that has nothing to do with the kid’s school level."</p>
<p>The clashes over selective-admissions policies reflect the challenges districts face in reconciling two goals that are often diametrically opposed: academic achievement and equity. How can a school be color blind while <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/education/20cncschools.html?pagewanted=all">simultaneously promoting educational access and diversity</a>? Or, as Kahlenberg phrased it, "How do you recognize excellence on the one hand and promote genuine equal opportunity on the other?" But perhaps more importantly, the dilemma begs another question: Can a fair selective-admissions system for public schools even exist?</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr">* * *</p>
<p>The ongoing tug-of-wars over selective-admissions and racial diversity—including the battle currently being waged in New York City—are a reminder that urban school districts are nowhere near coming up with a model that works well and raises all students. The fact remains that many of these schools look and operate like elite schools exclusive to elite families.</p>
<p>Take Boston Latin Academy, which is arguably Massachusetts’ most prestigious public school and said to be the oldest in the country. At Boston Latin, whites make up 48 percent of the student population, while blacks and Latinos collectively amount to just 20 percent. The rest identify as Asian or multiracial. Compare that with Boston’s public school population as a whole, in which three-fourths of students are black or Latino, while just 14 percent are white. And unlike New York City’s elite schools, Boston’s three selective institutions look at GPA on top of test scores. Until the late ‘90s, the schools also factored in race, enrolling half of its students based on a combination of their academics and ethnic background, but a lawsuit eventually forced the schools to drop race-based admissions completely.</p>
<p>The numbers are even more staggering in New York City. The city is home to the largest school district in the country, serving more than 1 million kids, including roughly 300,000 high school students. Unlike some other school districts, in New York City geography rarely decides where a student enrolls. Instead, students <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/High/default.htm">have to apply to attend</a> one of the city’s 400 or so public high schools, many of which are <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/30E4141F-89AC-484A-906B-E26E10452AAA/0/20142015HSDIntroduction.pdf">specialized or geared around specific academic objectives</a>: vocational training programs, for example, or schools designed for newly arrived immigrants who speak English as a second language.</p>
<p>Every fall, the city’s eighth graders must submit their applications, listing as many as 12 of their preferred high schools. The Department of Education then matches students with one of their chosen schools based on a range of factors that vary depending largely on schools’ admissions policies and available seats. Some of these schools have <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/30E4141F-89AC-484A-906B-E26E10452AAA/0/20142015HSDIntroduction.pdf">relatively demanding admissions standards</a>, requiring applicants to submit portfolios and transcripts or audition, while others simply randomly select their students or give preference to applicants who attend open houses.</p>
<p>But on top of these 12 choices, students can also apply to one of the elite public high schools, which are so selective that the odds of getting in are <a href="http://posttrib.chicagotribune.com/news/24598924-418/high-schools-play-role-in-ivy-league-acceptance.html#.VG6d3mTF_e0">in the single digits</a>—as low as 3 percent. All but one of these nine "specialized high schools"<a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/High/specialized/default.htm">rely exclusively on exam scores</a> to determine students’ eligibility—a custom that’s garnered criticism amid growing skepticism of over-testing in schools and the widespread belief that the focus on assessments effectively bars access for poor kids and different kinds of learners. (The ninth school—LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts—offers admission based on auditions or portfolio assessments.)</p>
<p>These are schools renowned for their academic prowess and widely seen as conduits to the country’s top colleges. But, as the NAACP complaint demonstrates, they’re also notorious for their lack of racial diversity, enrolling disproportionate numbers of white and, in particular, Asian students, who made up 60 percent of the student bodies at these schools last year despite constituting just <a href="http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/data/default.htm">15 percent</a> of the city’s total enrollment. The specialized schools—including the Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School, and Brooklyn Technical High School—all serve very small populations of black and Latino students. Blacks and Latinos made up just <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/nyregion/scant-support-for-elite-new-york-high-schools-admissions-options.html">7 percent and 5 percent</a> of the student bodies at these elite schools last year, respectively, even though the two groups together account for 70 percent of the public school population citywide.</p>
<p>Of course, race isn’t the only factor that comes into play when assessing a school’s diversity. Joyce Szuflita, a private consultant for families trying to navigate the education system in the city, pointed out that many of New York City’s specialized high schools are more socioeconomically diverse than critics make them out to be. At Stuyvesant High, for example, 37 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals (compared to about three-quarters of kids citywide). And sometimes, Szuflita said, the test-only policy can enhance opportunity for certain disadvantaged children who excel at multiple-choice exams or come from families that place an emphasis on test prep over, for example, expensive extracurriculars.</p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">"It’s not just a simple picture—there’s no one profile in this city," she said. "Those [test-only] schools are serving some first-generation strivers and working-class strivers that some of these other schools are not taking … A lot of the [other types of selective] schools are snagging wealthy, high-performing kids, whatever their race, whereas at those testing schools, many of those struggling parents are working two jobs to be able to afford the test prep."</span></p>
<p>Still, it’s hard to deny arguments that the test-only admissions policy can serve as a form of de facto discrimination. The multiple-choice exam is so rigorous some students devote entire summers to studying for it, often with the help of private tutors or intensive prep courses that cost thousands of dollars. For many of the brightest students, admission to one of these elite, ostensibly free schools unfortunately comes with too big a price tag. And according to Kahlenberg and Gross, much of the prejudice traces back to the lack of equal educational opportunity in kids’ earlier years, which effectively debunks the notion that a test is the fairest way to assess a student’s eligibility for enrollment. School districts "need to just do a better job preparing kids so that they do all have a better chance and more equal chance at getting admitted," Gross said.</p>
<p>Mayor Bill de Blasio has <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bill-de-blasio-testy-nyc-elite-school-admissions-article-1.1481345">pledged</a> to reevaluate the <a href="http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/government/5430-remaining-elite-ensuring-diversity-boston-chicago-a-new-york-wrestle-with-admissions-to-special-high-schools">decades-old admissions policies</a> at these elite schools and de-emphasize the testing component. But <a href="http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&amp;bn=A10073&amp;term=2013&amp;Summary=Y&amp;Actions=Y">state legislation</a> introduced this year that would’ve allowed the city to overhaul the schools’ admissions policies—and move away from the test-only approach—<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/nyregion/scant-support-for-elite-new-york-high-schools-admissions-options.html">gained little traction</a> and ultimately fell flat.</p>
<p>Again, New York City’s specialized high schools are rare because they admit students based solely on their test scores. Meanwhile, most of the country’s selective-admissions public schools look at a range of criteria, such as attendance records, grades, and written portfolios. Some schools, like those in Boston, look at two components. And some districts have stipulations in place that, similar to affirmative action at colleges, at least attempt to retain some semblance of racial and socioeconomic diversity at even the most elite schools.</p>
<p>That’s the case with Chicago’s <a href="http://cpsoae.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=72696&amp;type=d&amp;termREC_ID=&amp;pREC_ID=121765">10 selective-enrollment schools</a>, which admit students based on both their merit and socioeconomic backgrounds. The city, which is home to the third-largest school district in the country, a few years ago came up with an admissions algorithm that’s designed to reward the academically gifted while ensuring kids from all walks of life are afforded access to the top schools. In 2009, a legal battle brought Chicago’s racial desegregation consent decree to an end, and the new admissions policy was engineered to ensure selective schools remained diverse in a city where, like New York, blacks and Latinos make up the vast majority of the population. (Together, the two groups account for <a href="http://cps.edu/About_CPS/At-a-glance/Pages/Stats_and_facts.aspx">85 percent</a> of Chicago’s public school student population, while just 9 percent of its pupils identify as white.)</p>
<p>Every student is rated on a 900-point scale based on his or her grades and performance on both the state assessment and admissions test, the latter of which students must be invited to take based on their academic performance in middle school. But students are also categorized into one of <a href="http://cpstiers.opencityapps.org/about.html#the-tier-system">four tiers</a> depending on a number of social and economic factors, including their household income, knowledge of English, and family structure.</p>
<p>When it comes to admission to one of the selective schools, most students only compete with their peers in the same tier. A student who lives in a single-parent household and relies on welfare, for example, would in theory rarely contend with a middle-class student for the same seat. Just 30 percent of the seats at each selective school goes to the highest-scoring students, regardless of their tier; the rest, for the most part, are divided among the highest-performing students in each tier. That means the bar is typically set higher for kids in the upper tiers (the fourth tier corresponds with the highest median income) than for those in the lower ones.</p>
<p>Kahlenberg, who worked with officials in Chicago to <a href="http://www.cpsboe.org/content/documents/boardmeetingmagnetselectivepolicypresentation.pdf">come up with the current admissions methodology</a>, said he thinks the city’s approach is "the right balance" and offers a creative example of how to proactively promote racial diversity at selective schools without explicitly using race as a factor. "Given the overlap between race and class in American society in cities like Chicago, giving a leg up to economically disadvantaged students will translate into [racial diversity]," he said.</p>
<p>But even schools like those in Chicago that base admission on a range of criteria or proactively admit poorer students can raise questions about the fairness of selective-enrollment in public education. A recent Chicago Sun-Times <a href="http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/whites-getting-more-spots-top-chicago-public-high-schools/sun-04272014-434pm">analysis</a> of the Windy City’s 10 selective schools found that the percentage of white students enrolled in the top four of these institutions has grown over the years since the new admissions policy was put in place in 2010, even making up nearly half of the freshmen enrolled at one of them: Northside College Prep. For comparison’s sake, the 1980 consent decree, which was discontinued following a federal court ruling, stipulated that whites couldn’t account for more than 35 percent of any school’s student population.</p>
<p>The recent phenomenon could in part be explained by caveats in the city’s admissions policy. Kids are placed in tiers based on the census blocks they live in—not on their individual socioeconomic profiles. The Chicago Sun-Times investigation found that low-income students occasionally get placed in the same tier as the city’s wealthiest. For example, Tier 4 includes students who live in the affluent <a href="http://www.choosechicago.com/neighborhoods-and-communities/gold-coast/">Gold Coast</a> neighborhood—where the median income is nearly $305,000—but it also encompasses those who live near the Halsted area on the South Side, where the median income is about $42,000, according to the paper’s analysis. Moreover, the tier-based admissions policy isn’t a hard-and-fast rule; school administrators have some discretion over which students to enroll and can choose to admit someone who doesn’t meet the testing criteria.</p>
<p>And in Chicago, not all selective schools look the same. The four highest-ranking schools are essentially "white schools," receiving and enrolling disproportionate numbers of Caucasian applicants, while another four almost exclusively serve minority students. Chicago Alderman Latasha Thomas, who chairs the city council’s Education Committee, recently said the discontinuation of the desegregation decree has resulted in the re-segregation of the city’s schools, according to a <a href="http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/alderman-warns-re-segregation-top-public-high-schools/tue-07152014-1258pm">Sun-Times report</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr">* * *</p>
<p>Diversity aside, selective-enrollment high schools also raise questions about what the admissions process can do to an adolescent’s psyche, particularly when it places an inordinate emphasis on testing. Forget Halloween, weekend sleepovers with friends, playing outdoors. For many eighth graders in New York City, the fall is synonymous with tutors and exams, while the spring brings intense competition—and often volatile emotions—over placement in coveted spots at the city’s best high schools.</p>
<p>“If you can make it through the high school application process, college is a breeze.”</p>
<p>And that’s just the kids: Parents feel the crunch, too, sacrificing their work days to take their children on high school tours and sometimes dipping into their savings to pay for test prep. Of course, the stress that some families undergo would be a luxury for many others—parents who might be so new to the city, or so unfamiliar with the English language, or so overburdened by life’s other problems that they either don’t know how to navigate the morass of tests and applications or simply don’t have the resources to try.</p>
<p>"It’s gallows humor for New York City families," Szuflita said. "If you can make it through the high school application process, college is a breeze."</p>
<p>Indeed, New York City’s district-wide system of selective-admissions high schools—test-only and otherwise—causes headaches for parents and students across the city. "It’s not a perfect system by a long shot," Szuflita said. "If you ask any parent that was going through it right now, they would say it’s absolutely the worst system they ever saw." Some parents have to take off work and tour as many as 20 schools. (That, ironically, is particularly difficult for the ones who work as teachers and are themselves in the classrooms being toured by fellow parents.)</p>
<p>As for the students, "you’re given a cornucopia of beautiful and horrible choices and then held up, feeling like you’re being assessed and placed and feeling like your life is not your own," Szuflita said. "It feels very uncertain, and it feels like there are great triumphs and disasters." In 2012, according to Szuflita, about half of the more than 77,000 eighth graders who applied to public schools got their first choices, while three-fourths of them got one of their top-three picks. But 10 percent of the students didn’t get a match. That’s nearly 8,000 students.</p>
<p>"With the variety," Szuflita said, "comes tremendous anxiety."</p>
<p>"It’s lovely to have the variety; some of these schools are really unique and spectacular choices," Szuflita continued. "But if you don’t get that placement you feel stricken."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-the-cutthroat-world-of-elite-public-schools-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-in-san-francisco-2014-11The 10 Best Private High Schools In The San Francisco Bay Areahttp://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-in-san-francisco-2014-11
Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:48:31 -0500Peter Jacobs
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/545cdc676bb3f7a12f5e46f4-600-/college-preparatory-high-school-students-campus.png" border="0" alt="College Preparatory High School Students Campus" width="600"></p><p>The College Preparatory School is the best private high school in the San Francisco area, according <a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/m/san-francisco-metro-area/">to a new ranking from education review website Niche</a>.</p>
<p>Niche rankings are based on a combination of user reviews and education statistics sourced from the government and public databases.</p>
<p>According to Niche, a school's high score indicates that "Students are very happy with their experiences in all aspects including academics, teachers, health, safety, resources, facilities, extracurriculars, sports, and fitness."</p>
<p>Students really seem to love the school. As one current high school senior wrote on Niche, "I think the opportunities are excellent and the school really supports a spirited and fun environment!"</p>
<p><strong>Here are the 10 best private high schools in the San Francisco area, via Niche:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>The College Preparatory School — Oakland, California</li>
<li>Castilleja School — Palo Alto, California</li>
<li>San Francisco University High School — San Francisco, California</li>
<li>Lick-Wilmerding High School — San Francisco, California</li>
<li>Menlo School — Atherton, California</li>
<li>Head-Royce School — Oakland, California</li>
<li>The Quarry Lane School — Dublin, California</li>
<li>Epgy Online High School at Stanford University — Stanford, California</li>
<li>The Branson School — Ross, California</li>
<li>Pinewood School — Los Altos Hills, California</li>
</ol>
<p><strong><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">See the full national private school ranking at Niche &gt;&gt;</a></strong></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-in-new-york-city-2014-11" >The 10 Best Private High Schools In New York City</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-in-san-francisco-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11What It's Like To Attend The Best Boarding School In Americahttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11
Sun, 16 Nov 2014 11:45:00 -0500Melia Robinson
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/545a91176bb3f700078b456d-1200-/img_8040-4.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, becky moore, class, harnkess table" width="1200"></p><p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.exeter.edu/">Phillips Exeter Academy</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, recently named the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11">best private high school in America</a> by academic review site&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span>Niche.com&nbsp;and regularly called <a href="http://toptestprep.com/best-boarding-school-rankings/">America's best boarding school</a>, has educated&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">some of the most powerful people in history.</span></p>
<p>Its alumni base includes 19 state governors, five US senators, five Olympic athletes, two Nobel Prize winners, a US President, and even tech moguls like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo.</p>
<p>Many millionaires and a handful of billionaires are products of the Exeter community and have helped grow the school's endowment to $1.2 billion. The fund supports many students' tuition, which otherwise costs <a href="http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/109_1370.aspx">$46,905</a> a year for boarding students.</p>
<p>When Dr. John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard and resident of Exeter, New Hampshire opened the Academy in 1781, he set out to teach young men "the great and real business of living." More than two centuries later, the now co-ed school prides itself on the strength of its network, its commitment to spreading kindness, and on its use of the Harkness Method, a unique teaching model that schools around the world strive to imitate.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I recently spent the day as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, located in Exeter, New Hampshire, to see why it's the best.</span></p><h3>Phillips Exeter Academy, recently named best private high school in America, has a reputation as a "feeder school" — a school that sends a high number of students to Ivy League universities. As I drove to the quiet town of Exeter, New Hampshire, I expected to hate it.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/545a9114ecad0470198b4568-400-300/phillips-exeter-academy-recently-named-the-most-elite-boarding-school-in-america-has-a-reputation-as-a-feeder-school--a-school-that-sends-a-high-number-of-students-to-ivy-league-universities-as-i-drove-to-the-quiet-town-of-exeter-new-hampshire-i-expected-to-hate-it.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>Before arriving on campus, I imagined the quintessential boarding school stereotype — Vineyard Vines-wearing, silver spoon-fed teenagers crumbling under academic pressure, bragging about their college acceptances, and sneaking off into the woods to get high.</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/545a9116ecad04c6178b4568-400-300/before-arriving-on-campus-i-imagined-the-quintessential-boarding-school-stereotype--vineyard-vines-wearing-silver-spoon-fed-teenagers-crumbling-under-academic-pressure-bragging-about-their-college-acceptances-and-sneaking-off-into-the-woods-to-get-high.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>But I spent the day as a student in "the bubble," as students call the Exeter community, and it was nothing like I expected. I never wanted to leave. </h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/545a911669beddee4d8b4570-400-300/but-i-spent-the-day-as-a-student-in-the-bubble-as-students-call-the-exeter-community-and-it-was-nothing-like-i-expected-i-never-wanted-to-leave.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11#fewer-than-20-of-applicants-are-admitted-to-exeter-every-year-to-apply-students-submit-testing-scores-essays-and-their-middle-school-principals-recommendation-these-flags-represent-where-current-students-come-from-and-the-pins-show-the-hometowns-of-applicants-for-the-class-of-2019-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11I Spent A Day At A Prestigious New England Boarding School - And It Was Nothing Like What I Expectedhttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11
Sun, 16 Nov 2014 09:00:00 -0500Melia Robinson
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/545a91176bb3f700078b456d-1200-/img_8040-4.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy, becky moore, class, harnkess table" width="1200"></p><p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.exeter.edu/">Phillips Exeter Academy</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, recently named the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11">best private high school in America</a> by academic review site&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span>Niche.com&nbsp;and regularly called <a href="http://toptestprep.com/best-boarding-school-rankings/">America's best boarding school</a>, has educated&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">some of the most powerful people in history.</span></p>
<p>Its alumni base includes 19 state governors, five US senators, five Olympic athletes, two Nobel Prize winners, a US President, and even tech moguls like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo.</p>
<p>Many millionaires and a handful of billionaires are products of the Exeter community and have helped grow the school's endowment to $1.2 billion. The fund supports many students' tuition, which otherwise costs <a href="http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/109_1370.aspx">$46,905</a> a year for boarding students.</p>
<p>When Dr. John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard and resident of Exeter, New Hampshire opened the Academy in 1781, he set out to teach young men "the great and real business of living." More than two centuries later, the now co-ed school prides itself on the strength of its network, its commitment to spreading kindness, and on its use of the Harkness Method, a unique teaching model that schools around the world strive to imitate.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I recently spent the day as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, located in Exeter, New Hampshire, to see why it's the best.</span></p><h3>Phillips Exeter Academy, recently named best private high school in America, has a reputation as a "feeder school" — a school that sends a high number of students to Ivy League universities. As I drove to the quiet town of Exeter, New Hampshire, I expected to hate it.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/545a9114ecad0470198b4568-400-300/phillips-exeter-academy-recently-named-the-most-elite-boarding-school-in-america-has-a-reputation-as-a-feeder-school--a-school-that-sends-a-high-number-of-students-to-ivy-league-universities-as-i-drove-to-the-quiet-town-of-exeter-new-hampshire-i-expected-to-hate-it.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>Before arriving on campus, I imagined the quintessential boarding school stereotype — Vineyard Vines-wearing, silver spoon-fed teenagers crumbling under academic pressure, bragging about their college acceptances, and sneaking off into the woods to get high.</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/545a9116ecad04c6178b4568-400-300/before-arriving-on-campus-i-imagined-the-quintessential-boarding-school-stereotype--vineyard-vines-wearing-silver-spoon-fed-teenagers-crumbling-under-academic-pressure-bragging-about-their-college-acceptances-and-sneaking-off-into-the-woods-to-get-high.jpg" alt="" />
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<br/><br/><h3>But I spent the day as a student in "the bubble," as students call the Exeter community, and it was nothing like I expected. I never wanted to leave. </h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/545a911669beddee4d8b4570-400-300/but-i-spent-the-day-as-a-student-in-the-bubble-as-students-call-the-exeter-community-and-it-was-nothing-like-i-expected-i-never-wanted-to-leave.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-attend-phillips-exeter-academy-2014-11#fewer-than-20-of-applicants-are-admitted-to-exeter-every-year-to-apply-students-submit-testing-scores-essays-and-their-middle-school-principals-recommendation-these-flags-represent-where-current-students-come-from-and-the-pins-show-the-hometowns-of-applicants-for-the-class-of-2019-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11The 25 Best Private High Schools In Americahttp://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11
Sat, 15 Nov 2014 13:30:00 -0500Leah Goldman and Julie Zeveloff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54594fd869bedd3008234012-1054-792/phillips-exeter-academy.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy"></p><p>Prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire is the best private high school in America, according to a new ranking from school data site <a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Niche</a>.</p>
<p>Exeter, which has around 1,000 students, scored particularly high marks for its teachers and academics.</p>
<p>Niche combined community reviews and hard data to compile its private school ranking. The site<span><span>&nbsp;ranks over 100,000 schools based on 27 million reviews from more than 300,000 students and parents, who rated schools in areas like academics, teachers, student culture and diversity, and resources and facilities, among others.</span></span></p><h3>25. Head-Royce School—Oakland, Calif.</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/545913fdeab8ead64d862daa-400-300/25-head-royce-schooloakland-calif.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Academics: A</strong><span><br /></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><strong>Student Culture &amp; Diversity:</strong>&nbsp;A+</p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"><strong><strong><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Former students say</a>:&nbsp;</strong>"</strong><span>At the Head-Royce School in Oakland, CA, many of the students are welcoming and kind. You will rarely see a student not involved in anything on campus. A majority of the student body is involved in either sports, clubs, or the arts, or even all three. Head-Royce encourages their students to be individuals while being a part of a whole. </span></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"><span>Peer pressure was not an issue when I went to school here and in my experience, we practiced acceptance of any individuals and their differences. As a private school, we had a small student body and we mostly knew everyone. So when the "ally" campaign to support the coming out of LGBTQ individuals, we were all very supportive of each other and there was a no tolerance rule for rude and insensitive comments."</span></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>24. Chadwick School—Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5457c5ee69beddb87ca1a6b7-400-300/24-chadwick-schoolpalos-verdes-estates-calif.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span><strong>Academics: </strong>A+</p>
<p><strong><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></strong></p>
<p><strong>Student Culture &amp; Diversity</strong>:&nbsp;A</p>
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<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Former students say</a>:&nbsp;"</span><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.2">I've had lots of opportunities and have had great experiences at this school. I would definitely do it all over again. This school has shaped me into the person I am today."</span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.2">"They're [teachers] understanding and very approachable. They help make the Chadwick experience worth it."</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>23. Menlo School—Atherton, Calif.</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5457c74569bedd8f7ea1a6c0-400-300/23-menlo-schoolatherton-calif.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Academics: </strong>A+</p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><strong>Student Culture &amp; Diversity:</strong>&nbsp;A</p>
<p><span><strong><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Former students say</a>:</strong>&nbsp;"</span><span>Academics are top-priority. The pressure to succeed is prevalent, and `being in the top quintile of students is a formidable accomplishment."</span></p>
<p><span><span>"I really enjoyed Menlo. It gave me the opportunity to meet lot of new people and do different things. I liked most of my teachers and classmates. I made lifelong friends. I would definitely recommend this school if you want to be exposed to new and different things in a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. People like to participate in sports, drama, dancing shows, go to dance, travel, etc."</span></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11#22-polytechnic-schoolpasadena-calif-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11The 25 Best Private High Schools In Americahttp://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11
Sat, 15 Nov 2014 12:03:00 -0500Leah Goldman and Julie Zeveloff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54594fd869bedd3008234012-1054-792/phillips-exeter-academy.jpg" border="0" alt="phillips exeter academy"></p><p>Prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire is the best private high school in America, according to a new ranking from school data site <a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Niche</a>.</p>
<p>Exeter, which has around 1,000 students, scored particularly high marks for its teachers and academics.</p>
<p>Niche combined community reviews and hard data to compile its private school ranking. The site<span><span>&nbsp;ranks over 100,000 schools based on 27 million reviews from more than 300,000 students and parents, who rated schools in areas like academics, teachers, student culture and diversity, and resources and facilities, among others.</span></span></p><h3>25. Head-Royce School—Oakland, Calif.</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/545913fdeab8ead64d862daa-400-300/25-head-royce-schooloakland-calif.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Academics: A</strong><span><br /></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><strong>Student Culture &amp; Diversity:</strong>&nbsp;A+</p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"><strong><strong><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Former students say</a>:&nbsp;</strong>"</strong><span>At the Head-Royce School in Oakland, CA, many of the students are welcoming and kind. You will rarely see a student not involved in anything on campus. A majority of the student body is involved in either sports, clubs, or the arts, or even all three. Head-Royce encourages their students to be individuals while being a part of a whole. </span></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"><span>Peer pressure was not an issue when I went to school here and in my experience, we practiced acceptance of any individuals and their differences. As a private school, we had a small student body and we mostly knew everyone. So when the "ally" campaign to support the coming out of LGBTQ individuals, we were all very supportive of each other and there was a no tolerance rule for rude and insensitive comments."</span></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>24. Chadwick School—Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5457c5ee69beddb87ca1a6b7-400-300/24-chadwick-schoolpalos-verdes-estates-calif.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span><strong>Academics: </strong>A+</p>
<p><strong><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></strong></p>
<p><strong>Student Culture &amp; Diversity</strong>:&nbsp;A</p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Former students say</a>:&nbsp;"</span><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.2">I've had lots of opportunities and have had great experiences at this school. I would definitely do it all over again. This school has shaped me into the person I am today."</span></p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.2">"They're [teachers] understanding and very approachable. They help make the Chadwick experience worth it."</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>23. Menlo School—Atherton, Calif.</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5457c74569bedd8f7ea1a6c0-400-300/23-menlo-schoolatherton-calif.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Academics: </strong>A+</p>
<p><span data-reactid=".c.0.1:1.1.1"></span></p>
<p><strong>Student Culture &amp; Diversity:</strong>&nbsp;A</p>
<p><span><strong><a href="https://k12.niche.com/rankings/private-high-schools/best-overall/">Former students say</a>:</strong>&nbsp;"</span><span>Academics are top-priority. The pressure to succeed is prevalent, and `being in the top quintile of students is a formidable accomplishment."</span></p>
<p><span><span>"I really enjoyed Menlo. It gave me the opportunity to meet lot of new people and do different things. I liked most of my teachers and classmates. I made lifelong friends. I would definitely recommend this school if you want to be exposed to new and different things in a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. People like to participate in sports, drama, dancing shows, go to dance, travel, etc."</span></span></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11#22-polytechnic-schoolpasadena-calif-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a>